


contentment- ‘a state of happiness or satisfaction’

by Meatball42



Series: Rare Pairs [51]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Dark Jack, Gen, Imprisonment, M/M, Psychological Horror, Psychological Torture, Timey-Wimey, Torture, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-11 00:23:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11702925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meatball42/pseuds/Meatball42
Summary: The secret room was the place Jack went to feel at peace, detached from the savagery and cruelty of the universe.





	contentment- ‘a state of happiness or satisfaction’

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Winter Companions Summer](http://wintercompanion.livejournal.com/266311.html) fest over on LJ.
> 
> The Doctor depicted is, by necessity of the timeline, either Ten or Eleven, but it could be either. Jack doesn't care, he loves them all!
> 
> Author recommends that you Read The Tags, and also that you listen to [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t894eGoymio) while reading, for atmosphere.

Jack didn’t visit the secret room every day.  
  
For one thing, he was busy. Torchwood in the thirty-sixth century was an institution that spanned star systems, and running it was no mean feat. Jack’s secretaries had secretaries, now.  
  
For another… he didn’t want to over-indulge. The secret room was the place Jack went to feel at peace, detached from the savagery and cruelty of the universe. Jack’s life was long- had been long and was going to be very, very long. Although his secret room was time-locked, so he arrived mere seconds after he’d left, he knew that, one day, the lock would be broken, and he would have nothing.  
  
In the meantime…  
  
Jack closed out of a report, the last of a list. There were others waiting, and ocalls, vgrams, and other transmissions waiting on his pad- not to mention some agents fresh off hyper-pods waiting to report- but he needed sleep. Within Torchwood’s headquarters, time behaved more creatively than day and night, but even Jack eventually needed to leave his post and rest. He nodded to his secretaries and headed through the ice-covered corridors toward his quarters.  
  
Within his suite, there was a door, disguised as another panel of frosted metal. Jack took a long sip of the good hyperbrandy he stocked as he gazed at the door, considering. He hadn’t visited the room in a week, and he could feel the tension in his hands and forearms. He needed a respite.  
  
Jack took a quick shower and prepared dinner for two. He ate his own, listening to some of the calming classical music his oldest friend had introduced him to, centuries ago. Then he plated the rest and opened the hidden door.  
  
There was a small room that contained the time-locking mechanism, and then another door. Jack opened it and stepped inside the much-loved space- a sumptuously arranged bedroom, with a deep, thick rug and a majestic four-poster bed. In contrast to Jack’s rather ascetic suite, deep reds and golds accentuated the luxury of this space, modeled on a neo-Venetian palace Jack had visited once.  
  
And, of course, there was the Doctor.  
  
Propped up with a few nice pillows, the Doctor reclined at a comfortable angle on the bed. The tears that had been running down his cheeks the last time Jack saw him were still there. The blood trickling down his bare torso were still glistening wet and dripping, staining silken bedsheets. He was still gasping for breath, eyes clamped shut, head turned away from the door where Jack had, just moments ago, passed through.  
  
“I brought food,” Jack said. He raised the plate, although the Doctor was not looking.  
  
The Doctor shuddered. Above his head, deadlock cuffs clinked against the nutanium headboard.  
  
His wrists seemed like they’d been rubbed a bit too much against the cuffs. Jack made a note to take a look at it later.  
  
“I’ve been listening to that song you recommended,” Jack said conversationally, sitting beside the Doctor on the bed and shifting the slideshow photo frame on the bedside table to make room for the plate. “Remember, at Bruggemere Centre on Vega Ghabra? You were going on about all the composers you’d met.”  
  
The Doctor turned his head to Jack and cracked his eyes. Jack smiled at him. The Doctor swallowed dryly.  
  
“Right. Sorry. You know I- I love coming to see you.” Jack adjusted his seating on the bed so he could run his hands over the Doctor’s torso, the lines he’d left on his last visit. He traced them lovingly, remembering the time he’d spent with the and the way the Doctor had screamed into his gag. “I forget you gotta eat, too.” He laughed at himself.  
  
He hadn’t brought any water, but he dipped out to the kitchen quickly and brought back a glass. Jack held it so the Doctor could sip- gulp, really- after he’d unbuckled the gag. He had to go refill it, twice, before he started to feed the Doctor. The first time he held the fork near the Doctor’s face- like every meal- the Doctor stared at it with hidden contempt, warring within himself to allow it. But, like every time, he opened up eventually.  
  
Jack talked through dinner, recounting anything interesting that had happened since his last visit. It wasn’t much, he admitted to the Doctor. This whole millennium, in fact, was pretty boring. But it wasn’t like he had much better to do, and it would be good preparation for the fifth millennium, when this sector of space did start getting interesting. “Who knows,” he said- maybe somewhat dreamily, but there was no one who would call him on it, “maybe you’d want to come out then, have some fun with me.”  
  
The Doctor took a deep breath. It made the accumulated fluids on his chest, dried and wet, shimmer in the warm lamplight. “Jack,” he whispered. “I want to come out now.”  
  
“You want to run Torchwood with me now?” Jack asked, blinking. “This isn’t the best time, Doc. Like I said, not much is happening. You’re better off in here.”  
  
“Jack,” the Doctor repeated. His head rested on his own bicep in exhaustion. Maybe it was time Jack stayed a whole night, let him sleep instead of visiting whenever he felt like it. “Jack, please. Let me go.”  
  
Jack frowned. “I don’t think you mean that,” he told the Doctor. He was disappointed, really. He thought they’d gotten past this. “What are you doing to do if you leave?”  
  
The Doctor just stared at him for a long time, and eventually Jack sighed. “I don’t think it’s time yet, Doc.”  
  
The Doctor let his head fall back on the pillow, let his eyes close. His chest rose and fell in long drags. Jack confirmed his own diagnosis of exhaustion, and got up to change into the sleeping clothes he kept in the room for times like these.  
  
Gently, he pulled the bedsheets out from under the Doctor’s body and arranged them over him, ignoring the blood staining the sheets. The Doctor didn’t move to help or hinder, though he did moan once in pain.  
  
Jack smiled. It was pretty adorable, if he had to admit.  
  
He picked out a book from the small bookshelf on the wall and climbed under the covers. A wave of his hand dimmed the lamp, and he began to read out loud, quietly. It was one of their favorites, a journal by an adventurous fifty-first century archaeologist the Doctor had met once. Privately, Jack thought of it as their book, like some of the couples he’d known would designate their own song.  
  
The Doctor’s breathing evened out into quiet breaths, broken only once in a while by quiet sobs. He must be dreaming, Jack thought, and smiled. He kept reading, anyway. Hopefully the sound of his voice would send the Doctor some good dreams.


End file.
